


This New World Is An Awful Big Place

by sirladyknight



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, F/M, Female Friendship, Female Steve Rogers, Gen, May or May Not Be Related, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, short one shots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-17 02:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3511409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirladyknight/pseuds/sirladyknight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephanie Rogers has a lot to learn (and forget).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Gotta Dance Sometime, Kid

**Author's Note:**

> Steph is tough, but when it comes to certain situations, Natasha has to step in. What else are friends for?

“Natasha, this isn’t a good idea.”

Stephanie looked quickly away from the flashing dancefloor back to her friend, clenching her drink in her hand. Raising an eyebrow, the redhead replied in her usual dry wit, “This is what scares you, a nightclub? You jump out of aircrafts on a weekly basis and this is what makes you hesitate. You’re a mess, Rogers.”

Steph just pressed her lips together for a moment, trying to ignore old memories and failing. “I don’t know how to dance.”

Natasha sighed. Her voice softened almost imperceptibly as she spoke, “You have to learn eventually, Steph.”

They stood in silence as the club boomed and writhed around them, not so crowded that they were jostled but full enough that they could blend in. Steph stared down at her drink, watching the green liquid fizz and rolled her tongue against the apple tang still in her mouth. She took another swig, as useless as it was. The taste of alcohol was familiar and familiar was comfort. This place was something she was all too unfamiliar with and to be honest it did scare her a bit. It made her feel like how she was before, back when things made sense and she too weak to win but too stubborn to give up.

A small, brave girl in a rough, cruel world, Bucky told her once. He had been drunk, yet starkly sober and honest. Too far gone to try to protect her from the truth they both already knew and never spoke of. She hadn't known why until weeks later when he interrupted her fight with some oaf in a back alley, dressed in his uniform greens. 

She thought of him, of Peggy, and of the feet she never stepped on in her fumbling attempts to learn. She would dance for them. They would like that.

“Alright,” She said, grabbing Natasha firmly by the hand. “Let’s go.”


	2. It's Better to Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steph tries to enjoy the little things and partially succeeds.

If there was one thing Steph was thankful for, it was the ability to run and keep running. It was the closest thing to comfort she could give herself. Before, she would have been doubled over, gasping painfully for breath after only a half mile. Now, she could go for days, for weeks maybe, just running and still never get tired.

That was something she wasn’t grateful for, how impossible it seemed it was to wear herself out enough to just collapse into a dreamless sleep. There were enough ruined sandbags to attest to that.

It was a mixed blessing.

It was better now, though. She had Sam. He was an excellent running partner, even if he was a bit slow and easily winded compared to her capabilities. She understood what that was like and kept pace without a word. It was especially nice that he was fond of talking and didn’t mind if she couldn’t reply or if he had to explain something. She couldn’t believe how good it felt to have a partner again, to be part of a team, even if it was just the two of them while they made their circuit. It felt as if she hadn't smiled that much in years, it actually made her cheeks ache. It didn't hurt that he was a soldier as well.

Being a part of the Avengers felt a little strange at times, almost as if the group was obligated to be together rather than comrades and certainly nothing like what she and her men had before. In the midst of battle, they felt perfectly in sync but off the field, it was like a wire pulled tight, ready to snap. There were moments were they were almost friends but then they had split apart and went their separate ways before the bond could cement.

Natasha was the only one she could talk to on the outside, maybe because she felt it too. Besides Steph herself, she probably knew better than anyone what it was like to be an outsider. She and Hawkeye seemed close, but she didn’t mention him much. So, it was just the two of them and Sam, more often than not.

She did like that. Having friends again was great and it was almost as if she could start to live.

 

Then, she found Bucky and he didn’t know her.


	3. We Almost Had It

Part of her feels like it's somehow her fault, like she didn't try hard enough to make him recognize her. That she should have looked harder back on that icy mountain, that she failed him by giving up so quickly even if she had spent months searching for something, anything that could have meant he was still alive.

Like once again, she was tallied up and was found wanting, sitting cold and shivering on a metal examination table.

She didn't want it to be like this, would have given anything to make it otherwise. He was here, after all this time, he was here and she still wasn’t good enough, he still didn’t recognize her even as she pleaded with him. Didn’t he see how much she missed him?

“I’m not going to fight you.”

She dropped the shield. It didn't matter.

“You’re my friend.”

Bucky was here, right in front of her. She could bleed out, he could beat her to death, it didn't matter so long as she knew he was alive and she wouldn't let him down again, not this time.

His arm, metal and unforgiving, struck her again and again as he shouted what he thought he knew, that she was just a mission and that was worse than the punches, to be honest.

“Then finish it,” she murmured over a split lip, “‘cause I’m with you to the end of the line,” she gasped, staring into his eyes like he was all she had left in the world. He was. He really was.

The look of confusion and pain on his face, like he almost did know her, nearly broke her and she would have gladly died if that was what it took to never have him feel that way again.

When she fell, she kept her eyes on him until the water engulfed her and only then did she close them to accept her fate. It was no less than she deserved to be back into the water after she had failed to save him from his fall. She briefly hoped they wouldn’t find her this time around.

In her faint musings, she dreamed she saw him reaching for her.

 

 

When she woke up on the beach, she sat there until Natasha came and found her.


End file.
